INDUSTRY

QLogic Corp., a leading provider of iSCSI host bus adapters (HBA), today announced that it will supply QLogic iSCSI expansion cards for IBM eServer BladeCenter servers, creating the industry's first iSCSI blade server platform. The iSCSI adapter, shipping today, is powered by a single-chip TCP/IP and iSCSI offload engine designed to deliver user-friendly, high-performance storage networking while preserving CPU resources. "As BladeCenter servers become more prevalent, there is a greater need for more SAN connectivity options," said Tim Dougherty, director of IBM eServer BladeCenter Products, IBM Systems and Technology Group. "This flexible server platform now gives BladeCenter customers the ability to leverage their Ethernet infrastructure while optimizing valuable CPU resources." iSCSI -- Now Customers Have a Choice Ethernet networks have been used as a highly efficient way to move file-oriented data. In the last decade, high-bandwidth SANs have evolved as the best way to move blocks of data to multiple users faster and more reliably, using the SCSI protocol across Fibre Channel. iSCSI is a new protocol that enables block-oriented storage data to be carried by Ethernet networks. The promise of iSCSI is to simplify networking by merging IP and iSCSI traffic onto a single Ethernet infrastructure. With SANblade Fibre Channel and iSCSI HBAs from QLogic, customers now have a choice -- a Fibre Channel SAN, an iSCSI SAN, or a combination of both. QLogic iSCSI Advantages QLogic SANblade QMC4052 iSCSI HBA solutions offer high performance, low CPU utilization, and server connectivity directly to iSCSI storage or to iSCSI storage through an Ethernet network. These 1Gbps iSCSI-to-133MHz PCI-X HBA solutions offer several key features and benefits including: -- Offloading iSCSI + TCP/IP Processing -- The SANblade QMC4052 provides access to a high performance iSCSI SAN without sacrificing server performance. Interrupts, CPU utilization, memory bus utilization and host bus access associated with iSCSI and TCP/IP are significantly reduced by offloading the tasks onto the SANblade QMC4052 adapter. With iSCSI offload engines, fewer servers are required to maintain application performance. Recent testing by Network Computing's Storage Pipeline magazine shows less than 3 percent CPU utilization by QLogic iSCSI HBAs. -- Common iSCSI and Fibre Channel HBA Interface -- The most cost effective and simple architecture for server connectivity to SANs is to standardize on a single HBA interface. With a single SANsurfer management software interface for both iSCSI and Fibre Channel host bus adapters, architecting a SAN with QLogic HBAs is extremely cost effective and simple. -- Broad Platform Support -- Realizing the cost and ease-of-use benefits of iSCSI HBA standardization requires drivers for multiple operating systems. Drivers for popular operating systems are available for the QLogic iSCSI HBAs including Windows, Solaris and Linux. -- Boot from External Storage (SAN) -- Managing several operating system "boot images" is a complex and time-consuming task for system administrators. By consolidating operating systems on external storage and booting servers from external storage-- changing, adding and removing servers is easier and faster. The SANblade QMC4052 includes "boot-from-SAN" capability, enabling this cost and time saving strategy.